Can atheism be true? Not the way you may think.

First, I do personally think atheism as “lack of belief” seems to have an implicature that one is missing something, and that *if* someone is going to define atheism in the negative then “not having a god belief” makes more sense to me…however, grant me “lack of belief” for the sake of this mental exercise.

Second, I am sure if I asked most atheist if “atheism” is true that they would respond with “Yes, I believe atheism is true”. I would think that It would not make much rational sense to hold to a position that they don’t think is true. So let’s assume principle of rationality or reason (the wanting of being ration) that for the purpose of this exercise someone wants to be reasonable and rational.

So what does it mean if they think atheism is true if one merely thinks atheism is a “lack of belief”? “lack of belief” is a non-propositional statement, not a proposition which can be evaluated, therefore it can not hold a truth value of T or F.

Atheism=lack of belief (hypothetical conditional)

The question “Is atheism true?” then seems to becomes a noncognitive question. It isn’t even a question if we substitute “atheism” with “lack of belief” as what would it mean “is lack of belief true?” which would be akin to asking “Is running of bulls true?” or “Is playing of golf true?”. Which are clearly nonsensical in terms of being propositional.

However, Let’s assume arguendo that atheism is a lack of belief and “atheism” is deictically infering “I” which would result in “I lack a belief”. In doing so it now makes it a cognitive response statement of “I lack a belief is true” which is a true statement if someone actually does “lack a belief”. (Same as would be “I swim is true.” or “I play guitar is true.” if we take it as “I swim” to be the propositional part of the statement or “I play guitar” to be the propositional part of the statement, or “it is true that I swim” or “it is true that I play guitar.”)

But merely accepting that “I lack a belief is true” is a trivial observation to the question of “Is atheism true?”. So without adding in a ridiculous amount of hidden assumptions, what does it mean when someone who lacks a belief asserts atheism is true then exactly? 🤔